Monthly Archives: August 2013

Climate change impacts on Canada’s water resources are expected to be significant. Direct impacts of changes in precipitation and air temperature include earlier peak flows, greater flood risk, and more extreme droughts. Related impacts on climate, terrestrial and freshwater environments will also affect nutrient cycling, stream temperatures, the distribution, concentration, and timing of contaminants, and the transport and concentrations of sediments in watercourses.

Different watersheds and their communities vary in how susceptible they are to climate change impacts, as well as how well they can cope with and adapt to changes. This is known as vulnerability. A community can choose to do a vulnerability assessment to determine areas where their watersheds are most susceptible to climate impacts, as well as find the strengths and weaknesses in terms of their land use planning, emergency response, engineering standards, or community resilience.

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A new study from the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute points to the changes in water resources, vegetation and ecosystems that could affect Alberta’s landscapes in the coming century.

Using a range of computer model scenarios available through the Climate WNA modeling tool, a team of scientists led by University of Alberta biologist Richard Schneider found that even if society is able to rein in emissions, forests could change to grasslands and wetlands could dry up with a temperature increase of about 2 ?. Under scenarios of higher emissions the temperature could rise as high as 6.5 ?, which could mean the eventual loss of the boreal forest.

Alberta’s Natural Subregions under a Changing Climate

Alberta’s Natural Regions are predicted to shift northward in response to climate change

EDMONTON, August 27, 2013 – The Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI) has released the most comprehensive report to date describing how Alberta’s ecosystems are likely to respond to climate change. In Alberta’s Natural Subregions under a Changing Climate: Past, Present and Future, Dr. Richard Schneider presents state-of-the-art climate projections for the province and a detailed analysis of how Alberta’s ecosystems are likely to shift in response to climate change over the next century…

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As we learn more about climate change and its impacts, many people are translating technical information into introductory videos and illustrations to help people understand the basics in their terms. This post will regularly feature new resources that are relevant to the Kettle River watershed.

So what can we do? It turns out that taking care of our soils means learning about their hidden mysteries as ecosystems.

“We need to learn how to give back,” says Sheila Dobie of the Grand Forks and Boundary Regional Agricultural Society. “Composting, growing cover crops to return energy to the soil and rotating crops so we don’t deplete it – there are many things gardeners and farmers can do to help the soil food web.”

Straw mulch and lettuce protect the soil while young cucumbers grow

Recent studies show that soil contains one third of all of the world’s organisms. One teaspoon alone can contain billions of microbes of thousands of different types.

When a leaf falls or a plant dies in healthy soil, earthworms and termites quickly tear it apart and consume it. Fungi and microbes continue the work and make the nutrients available to growing plants to continue the cycle.

But modern, mechanised and chemical-based farming destroys the food webs in the soil, and rapidly breaks down the structure that keeps soil together. Heavy nitrogen fertilization and tilling literally burns off the carbon stored in the soil by stimulating the microbes which use it as fuel.

In fact, nearly a third of the world’s cropland is losing soil faster than it is gaining. According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, “Soil that was formed on a geological time scale is being lost on a human time scale.”

Soil is also disregarded when developing urban areas, and it needs to be stewarded carefully on ranches and forestry operations to prevent erosion and loss of productivity.

Because of their knowledge of building soil without chemicals and pesticides, we can turn to organic farmers to learn more about restoring soil health.

Organic farmers have learned to keep the soil covered with soil-building crops like fall rye, buckwheat and clover. Clover can even be interplanted with other crops to give a boost of nitrogen to the crops, at a fraction of the cost of conventional fertilizer.

Incorporating perennials, shrubs and trees in working farms can also reduce wind and water erosion and provide mulch and compost inputs for crops.

“One of the biggest things we can do around here is composting,” says Dobie. “It breaks my heart to see us burning and polluting the air when all of that crucial organic matter could be returned to the soil, with even less work than burning.”

Over the coming months, the Stakeholder Advisory Group will examine many ways of supporting healthy aquatic ecosystems and water supplies in the Kettle River watershed, including stewardship of the soil.

Howard Yana-Shapiro and John Harrison. 2000. Soil: The most important crop. Chapter 3 in Gardening for the Future of the Earth. New York: Bantam Books.

— Graham Watt is the coordinator of the Kettle River Watershed Management Plan for the RDKB, and is working with a Stakeholder Advisory Group from across the region to develop the plan. Email plan@kettleriver.ca